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Buying furniture from dead people’s estates sounds wrong. Buying furniture from dead people’s estates for as little as possible and selling it on at a profit seems somewhat despicable. Yet this is how many people, including Kate (Catherine Keener), make their living. Can she still consider herself a good person?

Quirky comedies are my favourite genre of film (if quirky counts as a genre?). And Please Give fulfils the criteria of quirky very well. As in the vein of Garden State, The Squid and the Whale and 500 Days of Summer, Please Give tells a small, personalised story which deals with universal issues, in this case, what does it mean to be a good person?

Kate and her husband, Alex (Oliver Platt), own a furniture store which they stock with furniture bought from dead people’s estates. Kate struggles with the morals of her job. She is a deeply compassionate person, but only sees the negative around her. Thus she spends her time being upset those less fortunate and handing $20 bills to beggars in an effort to “save the world”. Her daughter, a teenager struggling to deal with her self-esteem and skin problems, does not see the use of her mother’s compassion.

Next door lives Andra, a cranky 91-year-old who is looked after by her granddaughter Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and ignored as far as possible by her other granddaughter Mary (Amanda Peet). These two families’ lives meet as Kate and Alex have bought Andra’s flat (at least this purchase was before death!).

Catherine Keener gives a wonderful performance as a woman struggling with her image of herself and her choices in life. Rebecca Hall is the iconic self-sacrificing granddaughter, but she

Rebecca Hall

develops throughout the film. Her softness is so welcoming and adds to the empathy the audience feels for her long-suffering character.

The best performance must surely come from Sarah Steele. She plays Abby, Kate and Alex’s self-conscious daughter. She also played Adam Sandler’s chubby daughter in Spanglish. Her frail self-image and despair at her teenage skin is so real and I felt instant sympathy for this poor girl.

Please Give does not come to a great climactic ending. Not even all the issues are resolved – but isn’t that life? Do not go see Please Give if you are an adrenaline junkie or wanting to be a voyeur of the gritty realities of life. Please Give is calm, at times very funny and poignant film about people trying to be better.